Adaptive agent-based manufacturing control and its application to flow shop routing control

The manufacturing industry is currently facing unprecedented challenges from changes and disturbances. The sources of these changes and disturbances are of different scope and magnitude. They can be of a commercial nature, or linked to fast product development and design, or purely operational (e.g. rush order, machine breakdown, material shortage etc.). In order to meet these requirements it is increasingly important that a production operation be flexible and is able to adapt to new and more suitable ways of operating. This paper focuses on a new strategy for enabling manufacturing control systems to adapt to changing conditions both in terms of product variation and production system upgrades. The approach proposed is based on two key concepts: (1) An autonomous and distributed approach to manufacturing control based on multi-agent methods in which so called operational agents represent the key physical and logical elements in the production environment to be controlled – for example, products and machines and the control strategies that drive them and (2) An adaptation mechanism based around the evolutionary concept of replicator dynamics which updates the behaviour of newly formed operational agents based on historical performance records in order to be better suited to the production environment. An application of this approach for route selection of similar products in manufacturing flow shops is developed and is illustrated in this paper using an example based on the control of an automobile paint shop.     

The Dilemma of Privatized Public Services: Philosophical Frames in Understanding Failure and Managing Partnership Terminations

This paper uses social theory to explicate the competing perspectives on the on-going and, increasing, privatization of public services in the U.K. It suggests that if business ignores these perspectives then political imperatives will come into play that will inevitably turn privatization initiatives commercially sour.Contrary to political rhetoric, public/private partnerships (PPPs) constitute a more strategic form and process of out-sourcing, demanding that wherever public funding flows, private rent-seeking opportunities be created for the private sector. Seen in these terms, managerial elites will need to understand and anticipate conditions under which the state would seek to terminate lucrative partnering arrangements in the public interest.Political–administrative dialogue on partnerships can involve an unresponsive discourse or a dialogue of the deaf, both constituting a threat to business through the imposition of undefined community service obligations or hostile and unprofitable terminations by the state. Performance required of PPPs goes beyond market success and requires co-optation of strategic stakeholders, raising significant issues about corporate governance directions. Business leaders will need to develop communicative rationalities that build pluralized decision structures and implementation capacities. The paper concludes by outlining design features of more effective regulatory regimes to avoid hostile and unprofitable terminations of increasingly contested PPPs. The conclusion is less sanguine about the ability, or even the wish, of governments to do so.     

Assessing the local need for family and child care services: a small area utilization analysis

This article reports the findings of a study to develop a new method for allocating resources to family and child care services within Northern Ireland. Downloads from financial and client databases, together with a survey of social worker case activity, were used to estimate utilization costs across 500 local areas. Regression techniques were then used to account for variations in these costs in terms of local socioeconomic conditions. The resultant needs index represents a fair and equitable means of allocating central family and child care budgets to local units of management and service delivery.     

Econometric reviews

New approaches to Modeling, Specification Selection and Econometric Inference, edited by W. A. Barnett and A. R. Gallant.     

Anti-development or identity crisis? Misreading civil society in Meghalaya,India

This paper discusses the complex relationship between civil society and development in Asia by examining the role of ethnic identity in anti-development movements. Local and transnational movements by civil society actors against dams, mines, and deforestation have gained increased attention in academia and activist circles in the last decade, often used as evidence in arguments that development as part of neo-liberalism and/or state-led socialism is faltering. Furthermore, tribal, indigenous, and minority communities are often portrayed as having a closer relationship to the environment, which is seen as instrumental in their opposition to development projects. While agreeing with these arguments to some extent, this paper examines the local context of anti-development movements using research from fieldwork in the Indian state of Meghalaya and argues that struggles over development projects are also struggles over ethnic identity. In Meghalaya, civil society actors from the Khasi ethnic group have opposed several large development projects on the +grounds that these projects will attract labourers from Bangladesh and other parts of India, threatening the survival of the Khasi ethnic group. Damage to the environment, livelihoods, and loss of land are rarely a concern. The failure to recognize the influence of ethnic identity politics in critiques of development raises the risk of misreading both the extent of anti-development sentiments in civil society and the potential for development projects to be reframed by proponents into an acceptable ethnic guise. Furthermore, the actors contesting development through identity politics are overwhelmingly from urban areas, leaving rural people with limited access to civil society. This paper attempts to add a critical perspective to current literature on development and civil society using empirical examples from one of the least researched regions in Asia.     

Methodological Approaches to Assessing Risk Perceptions Associated with Food-Related Hazards

The psychometric approach developed by Slovic and his co-workers has been effectively used to assess risk perceptions associated with different food-related hazards. However, further examination (using questionnaire data and partial correlation techniques) has indicated that technological hazards are highly differentiated from lifestyle hazards, in terms of both hazard control and knowledge about the hazard. Optimistic bias was also seen to vary between hazards. Further research has focused on a particular hazard, genetic engineering. Risk perceptions associated with genetic engineering are underpinned by ethical concern and questions relating to perceived need for the technology, as well as perceptions of risk or harm. However, increasing the specificity of hazard stimuli was found to alter the factor structure of underlying risk perceptions. The utility of preference mapping procedures in determining individual differences in trust in risk regulators is also discussed.     

The Cohort Size‐Wage Relationship in Europe

This paper estimates the impact of cohort size on wages using data on young males in European regions covering 2004–10. The effect of cohort size on wages is identified through an instrumental variables strategy which, in contrast to previous analyses of European data, addresses self‐selection into geographical areas as well as into educational groups. The results suggest that cohort size has a significant negative effect on male wages for individuals with secondary education — the largest group — but not for individuals with less than secondary education or tertiary education. This effect is underestimated if self‐selection into geographical areas is not addressed.